Packaging of BO 6.5.1

We are trying to prepare an installation package for BO v6.5.1 but we are facing some issues.

The packaging tool used is Installshield Adminstudio 6 and the machine is Windows XP.

We are able to create msi package using the snapshot approach and install BO using the package.
But when we try to open Business Objects it is just tryng to open and closing it off.
The other components designer and supervisor we are able to access.

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Answers

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Have you tried running regmon / filemon to find out what's happening?

Also, do a compare of the file system on a vendor install against your repackaged install for any obvious differences. If all is well there then you can start looking for registry differences which is obviously more complicated but may be necessary!

I did a repackage of BOBJ 6.5.1 a while ago with Wise Package Studio, if I don't recall everything entirely wrong one of the regkey-values got messed up.

It was captured incorrectly with the value:
"registry28","2","SOFTWARE\Business Objects\Suite 6.0\default\BusinessObjects\BusObj Configuration\BusinessBatch\Bus Initialization" (one of the keys, think it was the OLAPInterfacekey)

1.Took an initial snapshot of the system.
2.Installed BO.
3.Exported the registry file (saved as bo_new.reg) corresponding to Business Objects.
3.Took an after snapshot.
4.Build .msi package.
5.Removed BO from the machine.
6.Installed BO using msi file.

When we try to open Business objects, it opens and closes immediately(just a fraction of seconds).

So we tried deleting the BO registry entries and imported the registry entries using bo_new.reg (refer step 3) manually.

If we open the business objects now, the following error occurs

"The installed add-in 'C:\Documents and Settings\localuser\My Documents\My Business Objects Documents
\addins\Web Connect.rea' could not be found.The file have been renamed moved or deleted."

When we give an 'Ok' it is Aborting (error C0000005) but when we checked this file it is there in the specified location.

I recall talking to the swedish support crew about this.
Move the WebConnect.rea from the user profile to the following folder:
[INSTALLDIR]\BusinessObjects Enterprise 6\addins\

Then change the following regkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Business Objects\Suite 6.0\default\BusinessObjects\BusObj General Preferences\busobj\Options\Addin\WebConnect\FileName
to "[INSTALLDIR]\BusinessObjects Enterprise 6\addins\WebConnect.rea"

Then it, hopefully, should work.
I put on mailnotification on this thread so I'll try to assist you as much as I can.

Also in addition to Martin's comment, try to search for any hardcoded path in those files.. may be the application looks for some other location it could not access.. the best suggestion would be to compare the filemon and regmon entries with the original source and the repackaged one.. this might help a lot.

Check the Application Event Log and see which component is triggering. I'm guessing that it's a component directory path that is pointing towards the userprofile-folder where the webconnect.rea is located. Change that component path to the place where you moved it to and it should work fine in that case.

Sorry I deleted my post thinking i should place it in a new thread. Thanks for your reply, will give that a try mgroover...

Hi all

I am trying to repackage BO6.5.1, and this forum has been really helpful so far. We're using WinInstall LE 2003. I had a similar problem with my repackaged app with the ## reg entries - changing the double hashes to a single hash fixed that. I also had the WebConnect.rea problem and the suggested solution fixed that too.

My app is now working, but the Windows Installer seems to do a repair when I launch it for the first time as a user. If i log off and log on as a different user, it does it again, but if I log on with the same user, it doesn't do a repair the second time round. I can't figure out what it is checking for that is kicking off the repair each time. There are no HKCU entries in my package. Once the repair has completed if I delete the Business Objects folder in the user profile and launch the app again, it doesn't do a repair, but silently recreates the missing folder, so it's not that.

I am downloading packagecleaner to see if that sorts it out. Any ideas anyone?

The component in the first error seems to just create the folder (or attempt to) 'C:\WINNT\system32\config\systemprofile\Application Data\Microsoft\MMC. Should I just remove the component? If i log on as an admin this folder does in fact exist.

You should seriously be checking through your package if you have these entries in it.. You could have snapped up anything and everything of the systemregistrystuff..

GB1:

BO 651 is an MSI - why are you guys repackaging it?
Well.. Yes it is.. But so is Nokia PC Suite and I wouldn't trust their filthy MSIs on my 20k+ workstation network.. First of all, BOBJ.. It's huge. It's like two CDs and I want ONE package not 10 packages or nested installations of it. Plus the vendor recommended us to repackage it since we needed two different configurations that had to be able to co-exists on the system.. Quite a hassle yes but got it to work in the end.. ;) It was less hassle than actually creating MSTs for it since the base-MSI has about (if I don't recall all wrong) around some 500+ features all with good conditions.. That's why.. ;)

I removed that component and now my package seems to be working 100% - it's not trying to do a repair the first time a new user launches the app. I checked through my app as you suggested mgroover - the only other non-BO folders the package has under the "create folders" section are:-

What Office stuff does it try and install? All our target machines have Office 2003 installed.

It does install about 50 files to WindowsFolder and SystemFolder - mostly .dll's and .ocx's, as well as some .cat and .manifest files. Are these anything to worry about? My base machine that I used to create the packages only has Symantec Antivirus and RightFax client installed. I know, I know, the antivirus probably isn't a good thing, right? I've learnt a lot from this site over the last couple of days :)

OK i did a bit more testing, and if I remove Office 2003 it breaks BO. BO re-installs itself about 10 times before eventually launching. If I close it and run it again it starts repairing again. Now this isn't the end of the world, but if we ever upgrade beyond Office 2003 (which i'm sure we will) then it's likely gonna break BO.

In the end I opted to use the original MSI file with an MST file. I used Orca to create the MST. The package seems to be nice and stable now. OK so the install directory is a bit big on the server - about 1.5gb, but at least it's stable :)